8.1 Introduction

JMW Turner’s 1838 painting The Fighting Temeraire was an inspired choice of subject-matter for what was to become Britain’s favourite painting.2 Painted for exhibition at the National Gallery in London in the nearly completed Trafalgar Square, the Temeraire was famous as the ship which had come to the aid of Nelson’s flagship Victory at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). But the painting did more than tap into nostalgic sentiment. Employing artistic licence, Turner used the picture, the full title of which reads The fighting Temeraire, tugged to her last berth to be broken up, to convey the transition from the old age of sail to the new, and innovative, age of steam.